“Maybe this will prompt the ATF to recommend (to the extent they can) that Congress do away with the silly, arbitrary restriction of SBRs.”
Yeah...that’s what will happen. ATF is about to lobby deregulate SBR’s. And probably silencers too.
I’m not sure it’s so far-fetched. From everything I’ve seen, the ATF has generally been pretty reasonable and practical in its legal interpretations in recent years, even during the Obama years. Do you think an activist ATF would ever have allowed 80% receivers and AR pistols in the first place?
They proposed the rule classifying bump stocks as “machine guns,” but only after the White House and the AG insisted they do so. We have Trump and Sessions to blame for that more than the ATF itself. They previously repeatedly told the Obama Administration that bump stocks were not machineguns and could not be regulated under the NFA.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the ATF should exist at all, but I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that it is staffed with committed gun-grabbers in recent years.